The Archbishop Viganò Archive:
June 29, 2021
The World, the Flesh, and the Devil
The enemies of our soul are always the same, and the snares they set for us are always the same. The world, with its seductions; the flesh, corrupted by original sin and inclined to evil; and the Devil, the eternal enemy of our salvation who uses the flesh to besiege us. Two external enemies and one internal one, always ready to make us fall in a moment of distraction, of weakness. These spiritual enemies accompany each one of us from infancy to old age, and all of humanity down the generations and ages.
The allies we can count on to defeat the world, the flesh, and the Devil are the Grace of God, the frequent reception of the Sacraments, the exercise of the Virtues, prayer, penance, the consideration of the Last Things, meditation on the Passion of the Lord, and living in His presence.
In this rebellious and de-Christianized age, in which society not only does not help us in the pursuit of our ultimate goal but actually does everything to drive us away from it, civil authority makes us follow the world, indulge the desires of the flesh, and serve the Enemy of the human race. It is a perverse and perverting authority, which has failed in its duty to rule and govern the social body in order to lead individuals to eternal salvation. On the contrary, it denies eternal salvation, rejects the Divine Author, and adores the Adversary.
It is therefore no wonder if this apostate modernity, in which unlawful action is the norm and vice is offered as an example to be imitated, wants to cancel every trace of God and the Good in society and in individuals, making a hellish pact with the world, the flesh and the devil. This is what we see happening in the brazen promotion of sodomy, the perversion of vice in all of its most abject forms, and in the derision, delegitimization and condemnation of purity, righteousness, and virtue.
But if today our daily struggle against our enemies must also include a titanic effort to fight against the State as well, which we ought to be able to consider our friend but which instead works to corrupt us from an early age, it is painful and tragic to see other traitors and mercenaries join in this siege: wicked Shepherds who abuse the sacred authority that they have received from Our Lord to push us towards damnation, to convince us that what up until yesterday was considered sinful and unworthy of those who have been redeemed by the Blood of Christ has now become licit and good.
The worldly spirit, the enslavement to concupiscence, and – what is even more grave – the refusal to fight against the Evil One have infected a large part of the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church, up to its highest levels, making it the enemy of God, His Law, and our souls. As has happened with civil authority, so also religious authority has abdicated its proper role, disowning the very purpose for which it was willed by Divine Providence.
The novelty of this perversion of authority, which heralds the epochal clash of the End Times, lies precisely in the corruption of the Shepherds and in the fact that the individual members of the faithful, as a flock without a leader, find themselves having to heroically resist an assault on the Citadel on several fronts, in which they have been abandoned by their leaders, who are opening the gates and allowing the enemy hordes to enter in order to exterminate us.
The discussion about the proposed Zan bill, the imposition of LGBTQ+ ideology, and the indoctrination of gender theory in Italy follows a targeted plan organized on the global level, which in many nations has already been brought to completion. Nations in which, even after two centuries of revolutions, the imprint of Catholicism had survived in the social fabric, have now become completely paganized. Rainbow flags fly not only on the front of public institutions but even on the facades of Cathedrals, the balconies of Bishops’ residences, and even inside churches.
In recent times – even only thirty years ago – it was said by some that in order to support a minority of people misled by vice and to defend them from discrimination, the State had to intervene with forms of protection and guarantees of their liberty. In hindsight, this was an unreasonable and illogical statement, because the freedom of the human person consists in adherence of the will to the good to which its nature is ordered and in the pursuit of its material and supernatural purpose. But in the great deception with which the Devil has always tried to entice man, that apparent pretext has seduced many. It seemed that courage was needed to claim the right to vice and sin against the cruel harshness of a “respectable majority” still tied to the precepts of Religion. The Pride of being diverse in a world of equals was claimed, of having the right to a space for vice in a “virtuous world.”
In those years, the Church still raised, perhaps with less conviction but still always faithful to her divine mandate, the voice of the immutable Magisterium to condemn the legitimization of intrinsically disordered behaviors. Attentive to the eternal salvation of souls, she saw what disasters would befall society with the approval of lifestyles totally antithetical to the Natural Law, the Commandments, and the Gospel. The Shepherds knew how to be courageous defenders of the Good, and the Popes were not afraid to become the object of indecorous attacks from those who saw in them the katechon which prevented the definitive corruption of the world and the establishment of the Reign of the Antichrist.
Today that heroic battle – which we have learned is already weakened by an extensive internal corruption of Bishops and priests – seems to no longer make sense, just as the teaching of Sacred Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and the Roman Pontiffs no longer seems to make sense. The one who sits in Rome is surrounded by immoral persons who wink at LGBTQ+ movements and hypocritically simulate a welcome and an inclusivity that betrays their choice of field and their sinful tendencies. There is no more courage; there is no more fidelity to Christ; and it has reached the point of insinuating that, if Bergoglio was able to change the doctrine on capital punishment – an unheard of and absolutely impossible thing – he will certainly also be able to make sodomy licit in the name of a charity which has nothing Catholic about it and which is repugnant to Divine Revelation.
The blasphemous processions that parade through the streets of the capitals of the world, and which have reached the point of blaspheming and wickedly mocking the Sacrifice of Our Lord in the Holy City consecrated by the blood of the Apostles Peter and Paul, are greeted by the mercenaries of the conciliar sect, which is silent before the sacrilegious blessings of homosexual couples but condemns those who want to remain faithful to the Savior’s teaching as “rigid.” And while the good Bishops and priests are daily confronted with the demolition that comes from above, we see published the enchanting and seductive words written by Bergoglio to James Martin, S.J., in support of a perverse and perverting ideology that offends the Majesty of God and humiliates the mission of the Church and the sacred authority of the Vicar of Christ.
As a Successor of the Apostles and a Teacher of the Faith, in a spirit of true communion with the See of Most Blessed Peter and with the Holy Church of God, I address a severe warning to them, recalling that their authority derives from Jesus Christ, and that it has strength and value only if it remains oriented to the end for which He has constituted it. Let these Shepherds consider the scandals which they cause to the faithful and the simple, and the wounds they inflict on the tormented ecclesial body – scandals and wounds for which they will have to answer to Divine Justice on the day of their Particular Judgment and also before the entire human race on the day of the Universal Judgment.
I exhort the many members of the faithful who are scandalized and bewildered by the apostasy of the Shepherds to multiply their prayers with a supernatural spirit of prayer and penance, imploring the Lord that He may deign to convert the mercenaries, leading them back to Himself and to fidelity to His divine teaching. Let us pray to the Most Pure Mother, the Virgin of Virgins, to inspire sentiments of repentance in the ministers who have been corrupted by sin and impurity, so that they may consider the horror of their sins and the terrible pains that await them: may they take refuge in the Most Holy Wounds of Christ and be purified by the laver of the Blood of the Lamb.
To our brothers seduced by the world, the flesh, and the Devil, I address a heartfelt appeal, so that they may understand that there is no pride in offending God, in knowingly contributing to the torments of His Passion, in perverting one’s own nature and wickedly refusing the salvation that He won from His Father through his Death on the Wood of the Cross. Make your weaknesses an occasion of holiness, a reason for conversion, an opportunity to make the greatness of God shine forth in your lives. Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by an Enemy who today seems to indulge your vices with the sole intention of stealing your souls and damning you for eternity.
Be proud, truly proud: not of enslavement to sin and perversion, but of having known how to resist the seductions of the flesh for love of Jesus Christ. Think of your immortal soul, for which the Lord did not hesitate to suffer and die. Pray! Pray to Mary Most Holy, that she may intercede with Her Divine Son, giving you the Grace to resist, to fight, and to conquer. Offer your sufferings, your sacrifices, and your fasting to the Lord in order to obtain that freedom from Evil which the Seducer wants to take away from you by deceit. This will be your true pride, and ours as well.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
Original Source: LifeSite Newsr
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